I haven’t been able to sleep the past few nights. I’ve got a tangled mess of butterflies, nerves, and every other anxious creature living in my stomach. I feel as if the next part of my life will be a lie. I’m a fraud.

I’ve never taught a lesson. I know nothing about a child’s brain. I’m not an Education major. I’m an English major. I am not a teacher. I am a writer.

Yet I am a teacher, according to Harrison High School in Colorado Springs. I leave in three weeks to organize my classroom, attend professional development days, and write out nametags. My focus as a writer will be pushed under the rug. I will not have time to ponder the assignment I have yet to finish—I will be berating the students who have yet to do theirs. I will be grading instead of editing, holding parent teacher conferences instead of contacting publishers.

But the part of this gig that I can’t really wrap my head around is the fact that I will be teaching these kids how to write. I write, I don’t talk about it. I’m overwhelmed at the thought of tapping into a part of myself that has never been drawn out. I think of writing as a tangible thing the same way I think about biting my nails: I don’t think about it. I do it. It is more than a habit, it is me.

Not every person is a good writer. Not every person will be a good writer. I do not believe it is my job as a teacher to make good writers. A good writer, like a good singer, has grace. They were born that way. But every single student deserves the tools necessary to craft and strengthen her or his voice. I think that everyone has their own story and every person deserves to have a way to share it. This is what I want to teach in my classroom: the ability to share one’s thoughts, ideas, opinions, and emotions in a way that will be heard. Writing is meant to be read. Our voices are meant to be heard. As a teacher, I want to provide students with the space and tools necessary to craft their thoughts into words and have those words be significant.

Writing is the human voice etched on paper. I’m not a good speaker. I’ve been told I stop talking before a conversation is over. I get distracted by people’s hair or shape of their nose, and forget to make eye contact. I’ve been known to walk away from an argument because I just can’t quite say what I want to say. But on the page, I am in control. I can manipulate, persuade, and coax emotion from the reader like a Siren’s song. Every person should have the power to do the same. Writing is an outlet for anger and frustration. It is a vessel for questions, a vein that carries thoughts into the world and fuels us to want to know more. Writing grants a person the freedom to not only use her voice, but provides the opportunity to be listened to. When I think of it this way, when I think of cultivating a garden of growing voices, I am overwhelmed with excitement, fear, and those tangled knots of nerves.

I guess its not so bad…